


you've gotten into my bloodstream

by Cherose



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Child Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Mild Language, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 13:21:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10537332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherose/pseuds/Cherose
Summary: An assortment of Caryl one-shots/missing moments I felt we needed. Will take place anywhere between Season 1 and Season 7. Rating and genres subject to change.Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead





	

**Author's Note:**

> Set before 4x01 during a night in the prison. Daryl reveals a part of his past to the person he trusts the most.
> 
> Inspired by my curiosity as to why Daryl is so good with Judith.

His footsteps are silent as he paces across the metal catwalk, the moonlight filtering through the barred windows casting faint shadows across his path. He needs to get some rest before the run today, aware that they need his senses ready and sharp. But he can't ignore the prickling sensation beneath his skin or the way his muscles tense and coil against his will. It frustrates him when he feels this way without any provocation. Most of the time he can will it away by fiddling with his crossbow or taking a brisk loop around the cellblock. Neither worked tonight.

Stopping before he passes Carol's cell for the umpteenth time, Daryl stands behind the sheet covering her door, listening intently for the sound of her and Lil Asskicker's breathing. The gentle puffs of air escaping their lungs soothes some of his tension, the tightness in his shoulders lessening minutely.

A dull ring breaks the stillness of air as his knuckles graze the bars on the cell door. He curses internally, forcing himself to turn away, to go back to his own cell and to tell his brain to shut the hell up. A soft whimper assaults his ears before he can move.

 _Shit_.

Peeking around the door, he spots her makeshift crib, her little body squirming beneath a ratty blanket. The next noise is louder than the last, alerting him it’s only a matter of time before the whimpers become cries. Carol lies with her back to him, oblivious to the sounds of the hungry little girl. She's usually a light sleeper like the rest of them - because you must be in a world like this- but after spending her days taking care of the baby, teaching the children, attending council meetings, prepping meals, doing laundry, organizing supplies, and keeping a watchful eye on everyone in their community, it’s no wonder she’s out cold. He notices the dark circles beneath her eyes and the way she all but drags herself to her cell most evenings.

People are always willing to babysit Lil Asskicker. So many believed they would never see another baby, the young much too vulnerable - too innocent - to survive the horrors they all know are inevitable. Nevertheless, she became a source of hope to the entire prison community, living, breathing, and thriving proof that life can go on even after the world ends.

Despite the offerings of the eager newcomers, there are few Rick trusts enough to take her for more than a couple of hours. Rick, Carl, Beth, and Carol take turns with the newborn at night. During the hours long before the sun decides to rise, Daryl hears their tired yawns and sighs as they get up to soothe her, either circling inside their cells until she quiets down or making their way to the kitchen area to prepare a bottle. Daryl usually rolls over and falls asleep again within seconds, but never during Carol's shifts. His hunter ears remain on alert until the creaking of mattress springs as she settles back into bed is the last sound echoing off the prison walls.

After quickly wiping his hands on his pants to remove the stubborn smudges of bow oil, he steps through the door and scoops up the restless little girl.

Thankfully she remains quiet as they make their way downstairs to the kitchen and within minutes she’s suckling down her bottle greedily. They settle against the wall just outside the cell block on top of some extra mats they use as a makeshift couch. Daryl’s lips twitch as her little fingers find purchase between his own where he grasps the bottle. As time passes his body begins to relax, the tingling of his skin gradually subsiding.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

Daryl’s head whips around at the voice, startled.

She leans against the opening to the cell block, hair ruffled and face pillow-creased. During their time before the prison, he taught her how to muffle her footsteps as they crept through the forest, but he never realized just how good of a teacher must have been.

“Sorry if I scared ya.” He hopes she wasn’t worried when she woke up and Judith was gone.

Carol lowers herself on the mat, shoulder gently nudging his. “I heard you pacing earlier. I figured you grabbed her.”

He simply hums in reply as his gaze wanders back to the little girl.

"I never understood how you're so good with her." He doesn’t miss the astonishment her words hold but he’s use to it. Everyone looked more than surprised when he and Maggie returned with formula and he instantly pulled her into his arms to feed her her first bottle like it was instinct. He still gets looks from people when he interacts with Judith out in the open, especially from some of the newcomers who peek nervously at him as if he’s something that belongs on the other side of the fences outside.

Daryl shrugs. "Ain’t hard figurin' out what she wants."

"Yes but it's like you've-" She stops, head tilting to the side. ‘Did you ever...?"

The rest of her question hangs in the air between them.

"Never had kids."

Carol nods as if she knew his answer already. “Did Merle-"

"Hell no. Could hardly take care of himself." He snorts lightly at the thought. Merle may have been crude and impulsive, but he wasn’t stupid enough to get himself into a situation like that.

It’s quiet again but he can practically hear the gears turning in her head. He keeps thinking of her first question, causing old memories he worked hard to repress to rise to the surface. There is a reason why he knows what he is doing with the Lil Asskicker most times, and Carol could clearly sense that. Over the course of the last few months she has shared with him bits and pieces of her old life seemingly without meaning to. The words just slipped from her mouth. Like when Daryl once mentioned he saved a mama cat and her kittens from the side of the road one rainy night and she said she once tried to take in a stray cat but it died within a week once it scratched Ed in fear. Or when she sifted through dusty travel pamphlets in a Ma n’ Pop general store they camped out in after the farm, quietly revealing to him that the coastal city on one of the covers was where her and Ed went on their honeymoon. He didn’t miss the way her eyes flashed and the papers within her grip crumpled before she tossed them to the ground.

Rarely did he divulge anything from his own past, not wanting to relive anything he barely survived in the first place. But a part of him feels like he owes her something in return. He finds himself wanting her to know, wanting to let her in for a moment so she can understand. And that sudden desire makes him feel more on edge than he was earlier.

With a sigh, he allows the words to form. "I was 15 when my old man was hookin' up with some woman who had a baby a little bit older than Asskicker. He wanted time with her without the baby 'round so they took off for a few days. Left her with me. I didn't know what the hell I was doin'."

Carol’s eyes widen. "She just left her child with you? How did you know how to take care of her?”

"There was a book with all the other stuff she left for her. Was supposed to be studyin' for school ‘cause I was behind, but I stayed up all night readin' that book so I wouldn't hurt her."

"Were you scared?"

If he closed his eyes he could picture rocking her in his cold room - his old man had forgot to pay the heating bill again- desperately trying to figure what she needed, the panic bubbling in his chest with every passing minute. "Terrified. Every time she cried I thought I had done somethin' wrong."

He looks down at the little girl in his arms now. Her bottle is long since empty yet her dimpled hand remains around his finger. Judith blinks up at Daryl, her eyelids falling lower and lower as she succumbs to a full stomach and the cozy warmth that envelopes her.

"But everything turned out okay watching her?"

"Yeah. They came back 'bout four or five days later, drunk and stumblin' through the front door. That was the last time I saw that woman or her daughter." He winces internally, the partially truthful answer aching in his throat. At that time, everything _had_ turned out okay.

The clench of his jaw or the sudden stiffness of his body must have told her there was more to the story. "What happened?" Carol asks in a whisper, the curiosity in her voice causing his heart to contract painfully.

It's a few moments before he can answer, the burning in the back of his throat growing stronger. He struggles to keep his voice even. "The old man stopped seein' her, moved on not longer after." He pauses again, feeling the walls he’s built around himself quickly crumbling and he wants to stop before there’s nothing left. But she’s looking at him expectantly, her eyes gentle and accepting of whatever comes next. When he feels the light pressure of her hand on his arm, reassuring and warm, it’s impossible for him to keep it to himself any longer. "A year later I found out she got in a car accident. The little girl in the back and her car seat wasn't right. Both died."

Daryl desperately tries to ignore Carol's sharp intake of air, tries hopelessly to push down the emotion that now rages like wildfire. When tears prickle in the corner of his eyes he knows he’s lost the battle.

What happened then was years ago, but reliving the memory with another baby in his arms, a baby he _did_  save, brings about waves of guilt he hasn’t allowed himself to feel in decades. A small part of him knows the guilt is irrational; he didn’t know what her fate would be. However, he had witnessed what kind of mother the woman was. It was only a matter of time before she self-destructed and took her daughter with her. He should have _known_. He knew first-hand what life was like with a parent who didn’t give a damn about their child.

He remembers telling his father the news, holding out the paper he picked up from the corner store on his way home from school with shaking hands. Watery, bloodshot eyes taking in the flush of his cheeks and the tightness of his jaw as he struggled to hold back tears. The old man scoffed, dismissing his son’s news with the flick of his fingers. “She was a bitch anyways.”

Later that night, long after his father collapsed in his bed reeking of booze, Daryl wandered outside, following the overgrown dirt path to the pond just beyond their property. He plucked pebbles from the water’s edge and placed them messily in a circle in the red tinged earth. After pressing the wildflowers he had gathered in the middle of stones, he rocked back on his heels, unsure of what came next. He tried recalling what happened at his mother’s funeral, if it could even be called that. Was he supposed to say something? Kind words? A memory? A prayer? He remembers the last thought caused him to laugh bitterly, the sound carrying across the stillness of the water. God never once answered a prayer of his, not even after the marks started appearing on his skin. Daryl had learned a long time ago that there was no one listening up there or anywhere.

Instead of reminiscing about his time with her or foolishly begging to some man in the sky, he sat there among the reeds and buzzing insects, watching as the sun rose above the horizon, and let his heart harden once again.

He is jolted back from the memory with a light pull on his forearm. “Daryl? Daryl, ease up just a little bit okay?”

Opening his eyes that he didn’t realize he closed, he focuses on the anxious face inches from his own. Her blue eyes glisten in the dim light. She tugs on him again, causing his gaze to flicker down. Judith is flush against his body, his arms wrapped protectively and much too tight around her.

With a stuttered breath, Daryl relaxes his grip and attempts to slowing the rapid beat of his heart. Shame causes heat to wash across his already overheated skin as he looks at Judith, the slumbering little girl oblivious to his mistake. He recalls why his eyes were screwed shut before as more tears threaten to spill over.

Carol’s smooth hand rubs across skin. He can’t decide if it makes him feel better or worse, but he fixates on it to will away the moisture in his eyes and stay grounded in the present. “I’m so sorry Daryl.”

“It was a long time ago.” He doesn’t hesitate to dismiss her words. This is his burden to bear. His loss to grieve. He wants to kick himself for telling her this, for no doubt reminding her of the little girl she lost. Another child he couldn't save

“That doesn’t make it any less important.” Carol gives him a gentle squeeze before continuing, “I bet you gave that little girl more love in the short amount of time you had with her than her mama ever gave her. You took care of her and protected her in the best way you knew how. You should be proud of that, Daryl.”

The constriction in his throat limits his response to jerky nod of his head. He can’t bring himself to accept her praise right now, not when his wounds feel so fresh again, but he doesn’t entirely reject it either.

The faint swish of skin on skin as her hand glides slowly along his arm fills the quiet for several minutes. He feels the pain of the memories slowly subsiding as he replays her words in his mind and focuses on the warmth that radiates from the two girls nestled against him.

“Do you want me to take her back to bed?” She asks after Daryl’s pulse finally returns to normal and his muscles lose most of their tension.

“I…I want to hold ‘er for a while longer.” He risks a glance at her through the dark fringe of his hair. “If that’s okay with ya.”

“Of course it is.”

As Carol withdraws from him, he feels his face fall against his will at the sudden absence of her touch. She appears surprised as her bright eyes catch his expression before he can recover, her lips turning softly upwards as she settles back against the wall at his side again.

When her head comes to rest against his shoulder seconds later, despite causing a surge of new emotions that conflict with the old ones that linger, he doesn’t try to stop the smile that forms from spreading across his face. 

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for any errors you may find, especially comma placement and sometimes tense. I edited this myself until I had to stop looking at it so I wouldn't do more damage than good.
> 
> It's been years since I wrote fanfiction of any sort, much of it complete garbage now that I look back. I started watching TWD during its second season and always thought Daryl and Carol should be together but didn't think much more of it. I took a break from the show during 5b and 6 but frantically caught up before the Season 7 premiere. It was then that I realized how much I loved them as individuals but even more so as a ship and...the rest is history. What a wonderful world I've stumbled upon. If only the writers of the show would take some pointers from the many amazing Caryl writers on the internet.
> 
> Anyways, this is my first contribution to this ship and I hope it doesn't disappoint too terribly. I am a busy college student so updates may take a while. Once summer comes I hope to have more time to write. I'll need to fill my cravings during the hiatus. 
> 
> Bonus points if you know the song that inspired the title of this work
> 
> Bonus bonus points if you know what previous conversation I drew inspiration from for one of Carol's lines (there aren't many to choose from so it should be easy). 
> 
> Thank you!


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